Not designed in any way to be a "pick up and go" type of offering, Men of Courage is assuredly aimed at dedicated strategy fans only. If you just so happen to dabble in the genre every now and then or plan on busting through a line of nazis with machine guns blazing, I can tell you right now -- you're not going to like this game. Commandos 2 is a slow, methodical, exercise in patience and resolve, leaving you in plenty of situations that can find you loading your save-game over and over again (possibly even hundreds of times) before reaching the conclusion. This game is absurdly difficult, and personally I like it that way.

Spread out over twelve scenarios (two of which are extra-long training missions), Men of Courage puts you in control of several different types of personalities. Whether you're a Green Beret, a Thief, a Demolitions Expert, or some other type of hardened grunt, constructing the best way to use each of these characters skill is the key to gaining victory for your challenges. While it may be a good idea to use your Green Beret to stealth a lazy guard with a dagger before stealing his clothes and blending in, it may be an even better maneuver to send your explosives guy near the underside of a bridge to limit enemy movement, and make it easier to move around your space. The possibilities aren't quite as endless as they sound, but do offer up a legitimate variety in the approaches you can take when completing a task, and for this Commandos 2 should be revered.

Something that can't receive quite as many accolades though, is the aforementioned control setup. While the programmers have done a fairly decent job of porting the difficult keyboard and mouse controls of the PC game to the Dual Analog controller, it'll prove to be way too much for the under-coordinated. Utilizing almost every possible button and directional combination you can think of, players have to switch between "Look" and "Interaction" modes, use two buttons simultaneously to fire at opponents while still moving around with the analog stick, and keep control of multi-man parties all at the same time. It's a seriously daunting task, and with no A.I. to speak of for your supporting characters, one that needs to be mastered if you wish to survive.

After several hours of practice (and one hell of a learning curve), the flexibility of so many choices will finally begin to reveal itself, and before you know it your allies will be cracking necks, hog-tying opponents, and finding interesting ways to infiltrate aircraft carriers and other such locales. It is a true strategy fan's playground, but one that cannot be truly experienced unless you're a veteran of such titles or your will is made of tempered steel.

And that's the real snag that will probably keep most players away: the challenge. An already difficult prospect even without the complex layout and similarly zonky button commands, the added frustration of trying to get your soldiers to do what you want them to could prove too much for Ritalin-deficient audiences. And that's just on the normal level; the other two resistance settings are absolutely nightmarish.

Unfortunately, I can't help but think that Pyro Studios did the best it could with the transition to console. Perhaps too complex for the non-PC world, Commandos 2 can't live up to its true potential without the aid of a keyboard and mouse (which sadly is not supported here).